Running Scared by Elizabeth LowellMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Unbelievable. That's two Elizabeth Lowell books in a row that have just bombed for me. I almost did not even finish this one.
SPOILERS BELOW
How am I supposed to get through plot lines such as ...
- 2 main characters touch ancient Druid gold and it literally burns their skin (okay, I can make it through that) yet instead of talking about it to each other exactly after it happens, they simply don't. They go through their day, they get it on in an elevator after a year of not touching each other out of respect for the job, etc.
- the creepy sex that Niall and Dana are having WHILE SPEAKING ON THE PHONE ABOUT THE GREATEST FIND THEY'LL EVER HAVE AND their employees in deep danger. What?!? It was literally gross to me. And I love sex scenes. Even raunchy ones.
- Let's see, this whole 'Lil Mama' or whatever pet names Risa and Cherelle had for each other. These two MAY HAVE shared a history but there is so much water under the bridge that it defies all logic that they even speak to each other at all. Let alone one basically giving up her career and life for the other. And this, disappointingly, even carries through to the last pages of the book. Come on, Risa, she didn't care about you in the least whether you live or die and now you are still whining over her? So utterly unbelievable.
- Cherelle kills this dude. No one ever explains WHY she has the feeling when she touches the Druid gold.
- Cherelle's boyfriend simply disappears after he apparently dies in the hospital. In fact, everyone dies ... Cherelle, the old man, her boyfriend Tim, the bad dude Socks... It's MUCH easier to NOT have to take the effort and write about a character. Much easier to just kill them off. And then NOT TALK ABOUT THEM? What about Tim's mom? What about her connection to the super connected maybe mobster? It gives me a headache thinking about all this book DID NOT DO. It seems lazy and a real disservice to people like me who spend their extra money buying books.
This book, for me, took any strong character - Shane, Risa, even Ian - and did everything possible to make them weak and whiny and unlikeable. They made such bad decisions, there is no possible way that they could run multi-million dollar companies or protect themselves. Let alone others.
I am happy that this and the last Lowell book I read, Beautiful Sacrifice, were not the first of hers. Or I never would have had the please of reading the other 10+ books that I loved. Did someone else write these last two I read? Even characters that appear in books I read, i.e., April Joy, are included in this. And I don't mind April Joy in the others, but in this book, I wanted to just call B.S.
In fact, I wanted to call B.S. so often, it took everything I had to just make it through the last chapters. I did. It was over. And I feel as if my time has been wasted. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
I know this is just my opinion...I believe this book got almost 4 stars from probably thousands of people, so maybe this one just rubbed me the wrong way. I've got This Time Love and Beautiful Dreamer on my shelf and I'm crossing my fingers that things improve.
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